Shiny and New: An Introduction!
The easiest part is always the start.
Welcome to the Pace of Life!
My name is Jonathan Roberts. I’m excited to start this new project—blog, newsletter, whatever you want to call it. This will be a chronicle of life and reflections, independent from the constraints of social media platforms.
It’s so easy to start something. It’s hard to keep it going.
It’s easy to buy some chickens. It’s harder to care for them and keep them safe.
It’s easy to start a run club. It’s hard to show up and grow it every day.
It’s easy to start a business. It’s hard to keep it going, especially when life hands out bad circumstances.
It’s easy to advocate for a better community. It’s hard when you face the reality that others want you to fail.
It’s easy to ride a bike. It’s hard when you can’t leave from your own home without an irate driver screaming at you to get on the sidewalk that doesn’t exist.
It’s easy to start. It’s hard to sustain anything. It's been quite a while since I’ve had something like this—most of my marketing career, actually.
Before my current vocation of creating for others all day, everyday, I wrote quite a bit. My education is in English, focusing on technical writing as well as literature. Early on, I wrote a lot personally and found some success as a freelancer. Back then, I mostly wrote for outdoors publications, many of which have come and gone. It was fun and rewarding but a total slog for middling returns. In that time, I always made more money driving a bus.
I'm excited to restart. Social media is something I do professionally that I feel very little personal fulfillment in. I'm good at it but I'd love to be off the platforms altogether. No plans for that any time soon. We have a good thing going in that problematic industry.
So, who am I?
I’m a few things. Trying to explain it is always tough. People’s eyes always glaze over when I try. Here’s an attempt: I’m a loving fiancé to Kristy, a chicken keeper with hopes for more of a farm sometime soon, a small business owner, a run club founder, a photographer, and a committed advocate for my region.
Through this publication, I’ll get to all of that soon. The way to sum that all up is simple, though.
I work to create positive change for those around me. For a long time, that’s felt like an uphill battle. Lately, we’ve hit a stride within our community, though. There’s abundant hope once I think even slightly past each day’s to-do list.
I hope this project helps me focus my thoughts and start explaining some of it.
I hope this helps explain what I do and why.
I hope this motivates others to build too.
Someday, I hope this grows big enough to be its own benefit.
I’m all over the place, overcommitted to-say-the-least, and always wanting to help more than I possibly can. This is a good chance to start explaining, to hone in on the reasons why I do what I do.
Thanks to you all that are following along. I’m glad for those who have done so already. If you haven’t subscribed, go ahead! I’m hoping to send something once a week and we’ll see if we can sustain that. If you have any questions, I’m always open to answering them. Have a great day!